Category — Politics

In 1976, one single army recruit died from the so-called Swine Flu. People panicked, the government panicked. After the dust cleared, the government had wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, and there were over 500 people crippled for life via Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) caused by the vaccine. Also, the vaccine killed more people than the flu did.

During a time of controversy, the best way to win over public opinion is to convince the public that there is no controversy. Sometimes, when an issue is too complicated for the general public to make an informed decision on their own, they rely on the opinions of experts, and politicians stop debating the points of the issue, and start debating the consensus. That’s a consensus war. It’s happening with the global warming issue, and it’s happening with the economy. A reasoned, logical debate of the finer points of the fiscal policy won’t convince the average American. The only way to win the hearts and minds of the American people is to tell them the experts opinion.

Recently, Obama attempted to shut down the controversy surrounding his so-called “stimulus” package by saying “there is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy.” Then later saying “economists from across the political spectrum agree” on the need for this massive government spending package. Of course, that is not the case. In actuality, many, if not most, economists disagree with the stimulus package. So in response, the Cato Institute took out a full page ad in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, and Roll Call disputing the president’s claim. Hundreds of top economists, including Nobel laureates and prominent scholars from major universities, signed the statement. There were more than 200 economists signatures on the original ad, and over 100 more have signed on since then. Read on to see the original ad:[Read more →]

Just when I thought I couldn’t hate PETA any more, they go and do something like this. The cult of PETA has decided that fish need better PR, so they’ve replaced the term “fish” with “Sea Kittens”. Yes, Sea Kittens. This is for real, check out their website, and a quote from it:

People don’t seem to like fish. They’re slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads — which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you’re swimming, and the big ones — well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.

Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy — stat.

Normally, when silly cults with illogical beliefs do bizarre things, it’s funny, and this is no exception, but there is more to PETA than just jackass publicity stunts. The thing about PETA is that they get a good deal of support from regular, generally solid-minded folks; at least, as solid-minded as regular folks can be. Unfortunately, not too many of those regular people really understand what the group is all about. PETA wants total animal liberation, they’ve said it many times. That means no pets, no guide dogs for the blind, no zoos, no fisheries, no beekeeping, no earthworm farms, no animals kept by humans, anywhere; and all those animals would be set free.

On top of that, PETA gives money to the Animal Liberation Front, which is a terrorist group who firebombs buildings and assaults people in the name of total animal liberation. And the money going to these groups is coming from the regular suburban folks who think they’re just helping baby seals. This Sea Kitten business is funny, but PETA’s other business isn’t. Read on to see some videos about how PETA really operates:[Read more →]

Time Magazine just published a series of photos of Barack Obama taken in 1980, when he was a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles. They were taken by Lisa Jack, who was an aspiring photographer at the time, and asked him to pose for some black and white photographs for her portfolio. The word Serendipity has been voted as one of the ten English words that were hardest to translate; this is a good example of serendipity.

The new strangely creepy CCTV poster found in a Brighton, England train-station

The UK is the most watched country on Earth, and still the citizens seem to be increasingly preoccupied with crime. As of 2004, England had one surveillance camera for every fourteen citizens, and it’s gone up since then, all in the name of security.

But do CCTV cameras actually reduce crime? The statistics aren’t all that spectacular for the studies that show a positive result, and most studies suggest that camera density has no overall impact on the levels of crime at all, especially in residential areas. A better idea might be along the lines of the West Midlands Police’s ‘Operation Momentum’ – using posters and an understanding of psychology, instead of cameras, to try to limit crime. Read on:[Read more →]

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, David Friedman’s Ideas, and he had an interesting topic: Ways to promote your political ideology. Let’s say you’re a moderately wealthy and talented individual with a strong desire to promote a certain political viewpoint. How do you go about doing it? What’s the most effective, efficient way to get it done? You want the most amount of change for the least amount of money and effort. I want to hear your ideas.

Almost every year we hear about scenes of consumer chaos and lunatic stampedes as shoppers knock each other down while trying to snatch up quality deals on Black Friday. This year an unfortunate man in New York was trampled to death in a Wal-Mart by a bastard herd of sub-humans who didn’t even look back at his body after they crushed him to death with their very nice shoes.

They have to be sub-humans, right? That’s the only way we can rationalize something like this. This has to be a one-of-a-kind incident where a group of sociopaths were all at the same place at the same time. Real, well-adjusted people would have stopped and helped that man. You would have taken charge of that situation and helped that poor man up and scolded the people who didn’t. Everyone thinks that. But no one ever does that.[Read more →]

Every day, you’re assaulted with advertisements and news and non-stop information. And every single person spewing that information has an agenda, even the “unbiased” journalists and news anchors and political pundits and survey takers. Everyone has a mind, and each mind has it’s own opinions, and those opinions make their way into the information being spewed. That’s just how it is.

So when you read articles or hear reports with seemingly hard, indisputable facts, you have to take it all with a grain of salt. Consider the recent election.

Scientific American ran an article with 6 different maps all showing the election results across the United States, all in a different way. It’s the way they’re displayed that determines everything. Check it out:[Read more →]